Under the Cherry Trees
by Amles80
Summary: Fluurin rarely smiles in the spring, except when she is dreaming. She smiles, sometimes, when she is walking, alone in the cool evenings, under the cherry trees in her garden. *het and femslash* Not exactly "romance" but thoughts about romance (and sex), past and future.


Fluurin is not generally an unhappy woman. She likes being the ruler of Caloria; not that it is always _fun_, and it sure isn't easy, but it is her life and her job and it fills her with contentment and pride to work for her country.

This is her life and not a bad one, but she would lie if she said she isn't lonely sometimes, if she tries to deny the burning ache in her chest.

Especially during springtime. Springtime, she always feels, is made for lovemaking. It is the time of year when everything is in bloom, new life is born, and everybody is happy. Cheerfulness is in the air and the sunsets make the sky pink and who doesn't feel like smiling at the sight of fluffy clouds sailing by and small, yellow butterflies and ladybugs and things like that?

Fluurin rarely smiles in the spring, except when she is dreaming. She smiles, sometimes, when she is walking, alone in the cool evenings, under the cherry trees in her garden.

She walks across the lawn and stops under a tree. It is small, but still big enough for her to stand upright under it. She feels the white, delicate flowers touch her face when she turns it upwards.

_Cherry blossoms are strange_, she thinks. _They won't last long, a couple of days, and when the decay begins it is unstoppable. But while they are in full bloom, they look eternal; young and fresh, as if they are carrying a message of hope: 'Let's all be happy! The world is wonderful! You deserve to smile!'_

She can never look at them without a smile. But then she doesn't look. She closes her eyes and she just stands there, allows herself to be happy, and when she breathes in she can smell them, the flowers.

The song she has been humming fades from her lips as she stands there. All she hears is the wind. And the birds. And the insects. And then, a voice; it's like the whisper of a voice from far away. The voice whispers of joy, of life, of pleasure. A voice from her memory that she only allows herself to listen for in times like these.

Fluurin met her husband for the first time when the cherry trees were in bloom.

Norman had been a good man, a capable and strong man, and although their engagement had been proposed by their families, he had wanted her to love him. And oh, she did. She fell in love with him during that time when the world was waking up after the long winter and she felt like that inside of her, too: She felt as if something inside of her was melting, something she hadn't even been aware of before, but she realized that this something had been frozen and then it wasn't anymore.

Fluurin had been young. Norman had been older, but not old enough that it mattered. They had fallen in love, and by the time the cherry blossoms had fallen off the trees they had kissed and made each other promises and everything had been settled between them.

She thinks of this like she always does in the evenings of spring and she remembers their happiness. She had been the happiest girl in the world during the year of their engagement and even happier when they were married. Also in springtime, when the cherry trees were in bloom.

She closes her eyes. The cherry blossoms against her face are like a gentle, light touch. When she makes a small movement, they are brushing against her lips. Like the ghost of a kiss. The thought isn't creepy at all; it is her only consolation, because she knows that it is just her imagination. She imagines that Norman is there again. She can feel a need stirring inside of her. A need to be touched by more than flowers. She brings her hands to her face and caresses it slowly. Her skin is tingling. She moves her fingers down her neck and takes her time, and then down to her breasts.

Carefully, she cups them. Her thumbs brush against the thin fabric of her shirt, over her nipples. As if she can't help it, she presses her thighs close together. There's a sweet, tingling burn.

_Springtime is made for lovemaking._

He had been her first lover and her last, but it doesn't matter that she has never been touched by any other man. She never wanted anybody else. She had been overwhelmed by the force of her passion and she had joyfully explored all the ways her body seemed to have been made for his, and when death parted them too soon, all she had left was the memory of the love they had shared.

This year under the cherry trees, almost the only place where Fluurin can remember him like this without crying, she feels the familiar need to give in to the fantasy where she has gone back in time to be able to touch him once again, to feel his hands on her body, to feel him move inside of her. Her lips part and a soft sigh escapes. Oh how glorious it is to be young, ready and ripe, in full bloom!

But this year, something is different. Her moments of dreamy pleasure under the cherry trees never last long anyway, but they are usually efficient while they last – an escape from reality. This year, it seems like so many things have happened that the past can't come back to her with its full force.

Fluurin doesn't send Baker to speak for her anymore. She doesn't hide her face when she sees people. She has stepped out of her dead husband's shadow and she is perhaps more loved by her people than ever before. Her country is allied with Shin Makoku and the Maou is her personal friend, Mazoku have helped her and shown her their good hearts and the ex Maou Cecilie saved her life once.

When she is completely honest with herself, she realizes that she's actually unusually and unexpectedly happy these days.

She cries a lot, too. Why is that? She hasn't cried this much in a long time; her pain did not go away but the tears dried with time, and Baker didn't need to hold her and comfort her like a child anymore, like he did sometimes in the beginning after Norman's death. Fluurin got used to living alone. But now, it's like she can burst into tears for nothing.

A child's laughter that is heard through the window. From the horseback, a glimpse of blonde hair in the corner of her eye. A kind word from someone. The overwhelming feeling of loneliness. The thought of young Yuuri's promise of friendship and Cecilie's smile. All of that, and more, can make her cry.

All of that can make her smile, too, because these are things that make her happy, but what kind of happiness is that? There is always an underlying feeling of something unattainable in all of that, there's something there that she wants more of and she can't quite put her finger on it.

She has these mood swings too often. Baker notices. Like earlier this day, he did, and he looked at her as kindly as ever, but even his kindness was too much for her to bear, and she cried again and went to hid her face against his chest.

"There, there, Milady", he cooed as he gently wrapped his arms around her. "What is the matter?"

"Oh Baker", she sobbed, "honestly, I don't know. I just feel so… so…"

"You don't have to explain", her most trusted servant – really, more than just a servant – said to her, and for some reason, that made her cry harder. "I understand", he went on, "you are young, Milady, and it isn't right that you have to live alone like this…"

"But I have to live alone", she protested, mumbled into his chest that was getting wetter and wetter from her tears. "I can't imagine how to change anything…"

He held her tighter and stroke her hair, and she gasped in surprise when he mumbled: "If only I were thirty or even twenty years younger…" His voice died out, and then he added: "I'm sorry, Milady, that was out of line. Please excuse me, I only meant…"

"Yes, it's alright, Baker." She sighed. "I understand…"

It is a fact that Baker _isn't_ thirty or even twenty years younger; if he had been, she might have considered him, but as it is, she can never imagine seeing his as anything more than a kind of father figure. And she didn't take his words as a proposition, not really.

Her sobs died out and Baker brought out a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped her tears. She smiled, and there wasn't any awkwardness between them; there never will be.

But there are things she can't tell him, because she doesn't know how to. There are only so many things a girl can tell a father, a 'figurative' one or not. He knows, because there is no way that he can not know, that she is lonely, but there is no way to talk to him about the burning need that flows through her body sometimes and her own hands aren't nearly enough to satisfy her.

Especially not now. Not this strange spring when the soft kisses of the cherry blossoms doesn't really evoke the memory of Norman but fills her mind with images of soft, soft golden hair… It seems if not wrong exactly then not quite _right_ either. Why does she have these feelings, these thoughts of Cecilie, and why are her mental images changing, getting softer and softer?

When Fluurin thought about ex Queen Cecilie before, she always thought about a goddess of vengeance and justice. She did not think about her in her castle garden playing with her adoptive grandchild, she didn't think about her by Fanvalen's side, or about her looking royal and elegant, hosting parties for the privileged and beautiful. No, Fluurin thought about her in her red, tight fighter outfit, complete with a cloak and a lethal whip.

That was what she had looked like the first time Fluurin met her, that was what she had looked like when she had shown up to save Fluurin's life and she had seemed to look into her soul during the brief conversation that followed.

Fluurin has seen her a few times since then, when her friendship with the sweet, young boy king has given her reason to visit Shin Makoku, but she has never again seen her wearing that outfit. And yet it is this image of Cecilie that has been etched into her mind and comes back to her sometimes, in her dreams or awake, and fills her with awe and admiration and something else that she hasn't felt for a woman before. And lately, she has begun to think of her not only as a gorgeous woman with superpowers but a woman with a soft smile and a warm voice and warm hands and smooth skin that it must be like heaven to touch…

Cecilie von Spitzveg has quite a reputation for seducing men, humans and Mazoku alike, making them fall for her as surely as little kids who are skating for the first time will fall on the ice. Fluurin can very well understand that power. Cecilie is a beautiful woman, passionate, living for love as it seems; of course that is irresistible. Lately, though, it has seemed like the gorgeous blonde is pretty serious about Fanvalen. Does that mean that her quest for love is over?

_If it's over_, Fluurin thinks, _if she's not looking anymore, then that means that I came into her life too late anyway and it doesn't even matter if she's into women at all or if she's all about men…_

Fluurin tries to stop her thoughts there as if that settles it, as if another question hasn't presented itself: _But if I am attracted to her, doesn't that mean that _I _am into women, maybe?_

Perhaps it doesn't matter because Fluurin has always felt that she can never love anyone again. Then it doesn't matter if 'anyone' is a man or a woman.

But if that's the case, where do all the tears come from? The tears that have less to do with missing her husband and feeling lonely in general – she admits this quite unwillingly – but more to do with the cold, terrible feeling that she's now dreaming about somebody who is _alive_ and warm and wonderful, but who is also somebody she can never have.

_What would it be like to walk with her under the cherry trees?_ she wonders. Cecilie has shown her garden to Fluurin once, that time Fluurin had gone to return the Wincott poison to where it belonged. Cecilie had shown Fluurin all the flowers she had grown and she told her all their names and sounded particularly proud of the ones that were named after her sons and the new Maou, 'all my boys' as she affectionately called them.

Fluurin doesn't have any boys. She doesn't have any children at all; she never had, and she has long since stopped imagining that she'll ever have any.

Cecilie has three sons and they are all grown up, but what does it matter? Mazoku are not like humans anyway and if she wants to, she can probably have more sons or daughters. What if that's what her lovemaking with Fanvalen is going to result in, a baby?

Fluurin looks around her in the garden that is bathing in the last daylight, and everything around her seems to cry 'life, life!' but where is the life in Fluurin? Is it really enough for her to be, so to speak, the mother of her country? This is not something she asks herself a lot, but somehow, the thought of Cecilie and Fanvalen passionately making love and perhaps making a baby makes the question acutely pressing.

She also wonders if perhaps the strange magic of the Mazoku can make women get pregnant without a man? But it's not like it matters. It's not like she is ever going to be with a woman, she is not ever going to be with Cecilie who is making love to Fanvalen perhaps this very moment…

But why can't _she_? Why does she have to be so alone? It is not fair. It was wrong, so wrong, of Norman to leave her like this.

She shuts her eyes closed and cries inside of her: _Come back to me!_ but she knows that he can't come back, that he is gone forever. It is no longer the memory of Norman that makes her body tremble and burn. This makes her angry. _Come back to me, why did you leave me like this?_, she wants to ask him this, the man she loved who left her without even a child who would perhaps have looked just like him. _Come back to me, please chase her out of my mind!_ she demands, but it is useless to give orders to a memory. The memory of his touch is fading and although she tries so hard to hold on to it, it's being replaced, more and more for each day, with the dream of Cecilie. Even now, under the cherry trees. The thought of Cecilie naked in Fanvalen's arms is painful, it is torture, but it also makes her almost burst with desire.

It is hard to fight it. She tries to wipe his image out of her mind and it is almost too easy to imagine herself there in Cecilie's arms instead. Now she knows that she can't stop this. She is standing under the cherry tree and feels her nipples hard as cherry stones under the fingers that move over them with more determination and force, and the growing burning sensation is oh so exquisite. She knows that it must be wonderful to be in Fanvalen's stead.

Her legs are twisting a little, her hips jerking. She wants to. She needs to. She lifts her skirts up and her hand fumbles blindly through the folds of all that fabric. She cups her sex, captures it with her hand, presses hard against the hand as if against another body. Her husband's is the only other body she has known so intimately and oh, he should be there now, he really should…

…But he isn't. _She_ is everywhere; the blonde, the voluptuous, the brave and strong and gentle Cecilie, _Cecilie_, because Fluurin is too shy even in this moment to use the nickname even though she has been given permission to. Is it weird that this feels out of line? Or maybe it's just that she likes the full name more. She would like to whisper the name into the other woman's ear, onto her skin, she would like to say it out loud, _Oh, Cecilie, please…_

Fluurin imagines things now that makes her lightheaded and she can no longer stand, she doesn't want to, and she is on the soft, young grass.

Now she is spread out on the grass under the cherry tree and she is blind to the world and unaware of everything around her now, except that she knows that _springtime is made for lovemaking_, what else? What else? There is nothing else, nothing but pleasure.

It takes a while before she opens her eyes. At first she is not thinking about anything, and then, about how good it had been, how wonderful her beautiful Mazoku lady is.

Yes, how lovely a moment like that can be! And yet, through every wide open part of her the insight floods in and hit her like a tidal wave: She is alone now; she was alone a moment ago, too. She has been alone for years.

There was that thought, so wonderful, 'her beautiful Mazoku lady', but now that she went there, now that she really did, she has to come back to reality again. The last echoes of ecstasy leave her body just like the last drops of water leave a leaking vessel and leave her with sadness. What would Norman think of her?

She doesn't know but perhaps, given the fact that he was a good man, a great man, he wouldn't think badly of her but understand what she needs to move on… Except that Cecilie isn't 'her' lady; hasn't she just replaced one fantasy with another?

Fluurin looks down on her naked thighs that her hands so blindly uncovered and exposed to the cool air. It's getting colder now; the sunset that was pink and lovely when she went out in the garden is now getting darker, getting purple and grey. A breeze shakes the branches above her and a couple of flower petals lands on her wet and still slightly throbbing sex.

Yes, it had been good, when she gave in like that, for as long as it lasted. But unlike the cherry blossoms, Fluurin has very little hope. The world around her seems to want to tell her that spring is made for lovemaking, but she has no one but herself. It's hard to lie like that on the grass and imagine cuddling and kissing, a warm embrace, _That was wonderful, dearest, darling, I love you_, there is no one to say such words to her, there is no one to hold her through the night.

The sun is gone now and she gets up, and away from the grass under the cherry tree.


End file.
